This
is Scotty's Castle, hidden in the green oasis of Grapevine Canyon in
far northern Death Valley. The real name of this place is Death Valley
Ranch, but it is more commonly known as Scotty's Castle.A wealthy
Chicagoan, Albert Mussey Johnson, actually built the house as a vacation
getaway for him and his wife, Bessie. It was an engineer's dream home,
a wealthy matron's vacation home, and a man of mystery's getaway and
hideout.

The Scotty of Scotty's Castle, was Walter E. Scott. He was born
in Kentucky in 1872 and was destined to become the desert legend, Death
Valley Scotty. Scotty, the youngest of six children, learned a lot
about horses from his professional horse-breeding father. He traveled
west to join his older brothers working as a cowboy while still a
child. As a teenager, he worked various jobs, including one season as a
helper on a 20-mule team hauling borax in Death Valley.

By age eighteen, Scotty's talent with horses had earned him a job as a trick
rider in Buffalo Bill's wild West show. For twelve years, Scotty
toured Europe and America while gaining experience as a showman.

Scotty had convinced everyone he had built the castle
himself with money from his secret gold mines in Death Valley. Although
Johnson built the house, Scotty was the mystery, the entertainer, the
cowboy, and a friend to the Johnsons. Albert Johnson was the brains
and the money behind Death Valley Ranch. The two men were different as
night and day. They came from different worlds and had different
visions. But they both shared a dream.

Johnson and his wife made several trips to the area and started buying up acreage.
Johnson
began buying land in Grapevine Canyon in 1915, and by 1927 had amassed
more than 1500 acres. One of these parcels had been settled in the 1880s
by Jacob Steininger. By purchasing this titled land, the Johnsons had a
place to stay during periodic vacations. From a tent camp, they built
three plain, box-like buildings, and eventually their villa - Death
Valley Ranch - AKA Scotty's Castle.

The Johnsons spent about $1.5 million on labor and materials on their
Death Valley Ranch from 1926 to 1931. Most materials were shipped from
southern California by by train to Bonnie Clare, about twenty miles from
the Castle. Some supplies were available nearby, such as feed for the
horses and mules, and sand and gravel to mix with cement.

A decline in nearby mining provided a variety of experienced laborers
to build the Castle. About half of the construction workers were
Timbisha Shoshone and Southern Paiute who were paid $3.50 per day. White
laborers were generally paid more but had room and board deducted from
their pay.

Skilled craftsmen and artisans were brought in from Los Angeles to do
everything from setting tiles to creating wood carvings and installing
decorative ironwork. The tile setters were among the highest paid
employees at $11 per day.

With the impact of the Great Depression, almost everyone's wages were
reduced. Because of the remoteness and harsh desert conditions,
employee turnover was high, especially among skilled workers. Scotty often said it took three crews to work on the Castle - one coming, one going, and one working.

Albert Johnson himself was trained as an engineer. Fascinated with
technology, he was keenly interested in the latest building techniques.
This remote ranch had to be self-sufficient, but Johnson wanted it to
be energy-efficient as well. Innovations included reinforced concrete,
hollow building tiles, an early type of foam insulation, and adobe-like
stucco exteriors.

Johnson installed innovative hot-water and electricity systems.
Water from springs that flow at nearly 190 gallons per minute turned a
waterwheel that generated direct current which was stored in batteries.
In the commercial solar hot-water system, the sun heated spring water
as it flowed through copper pipe overlaid by glass panels. the solar
water heater was installed behind Scotty's Castle. The sun's energy
heated water in dark pipes and glass helped trap the heat. Heated water
would rise into the storage tanks behind the panels. Cooler water in
the tank would sink to the panels to be heated by the son. One worker
said this system worked so well, it got water "hotter than you could use
it." This system was abandoned after it was rendered inoperable after
a winter freeze.

Johnson originally contacted architect Frank Lloyd Wright to design
his villa, but he rejected Wright's modernistic plan. A Stanford
classmate of Bessie's, Mat Roy Thompson, proposed a building with arches
and decorative tiles. His inspiration came from the Romanesque and
California Mission style structures on the Stanford campus. Charles A,
MacNeilledge was hired to create architectural designs. Thompson was
hired to supervise construction. Martin de Dubovay made detailed
drawings of decorations and furnishings.

MacNeilledge and de Dubovay attended to every detail of the Castle's
decorations and furnishings. Each room or group of rooms was finished
and furnished according to a specific stylistic theme, such as Spanish,
Mexican, Italian, or Gothic. The villa, a two-story Mission Revival and
Spanish Colonial Revival style home, became the Johnsons' winter home.
Specially crafted interior details were carefully blended to create
distinctively styled rooms. Before the home was completed, the stock
market crashed in 1929, making it difficult for Johnson to finish
construction. After losing a considerable amount of money, the
Johnsons produced income by letting rooms out and giving tours.

Bessie Johnson died in an automobile accident on Death Valley's Towne
Pass in 1943. With no heirs, Albert set up a charitable foundation to
inherit his estate. After he died in 1948,
the property went to the Gospel Foundation of California, which
continued the Johnsons' practice of providing tours, serving meals,
renting rooms, and caring for Scotty. Facing rising maintenance costs,
the Gospel Foundation of California sold Scotty's Castle and Johnson's
other Grapevine Canyon holdings to the U.S. Government for $850,000 in
1970. That was quite a bargain for a property that cost Johnson nearly
$1.5 million in the 1920s to construct and furnish. Today, Scotty's
Castle is part of Death Valley National Park. The National Park Service
was only authorized to buy the land and buildings at Scotty's Castle,
not the contents. The Gospel Foundation then donated the original
records and furnishings to the National Park Service, so nearly all the
furnishings, curtains, clothing, and decorations in the Castle that
today's visitors see are original to the site.

Scotty died in 1954 and was buried on the hill overlooking Scotty's castle, next to a beloved dog.

Why would anyone build a mansion in Death Valley?

The answer involves a story with three main characters,

all born in 1872:

a wealthy Chicago insurance executive,

his devoutly religious wife,

and an ex-cowboy who sold shares in a phantom gold mine.

The tale of how they met, became friends,

and turned a desert camp into a castle

starts with the cowboy -

a legendary fellow known as Death Valley Scotty.

Scotty was a master storyteller.

Even today,

it is difficult to separate fact from fiction.

In other words,

Scotty was the ultimate bull-shitter.

Scotty was also a showman,
a talent honed during his years with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.

"Showman"

Read: Consummate liar.

A New York Romance

Scotty was performing in New York City in 1900

when he met and courted Ella Josephine Milius,

nee McCarthy.

Within a few months, he had married

the twenty-four year old widow and candy store clerk,

whom he called Jack.

While the couple remained married,

they were not often together.

Scotty's only child, Walter Perry Scott,

was born in 1914.

Same year as Mama Hawthorne's birth.

Young Walter saw little of his father over the years.

The Johnsons' ledger books show

that they supported Scotty's family financially.

Death Valley Gold Mine

"My mine is where the devil himself can't find it.

It's in Death Valley

in the mountains where no man can ever go -

no man but Wallie Scott ...

I'm worth $1 million to $20 million

and it's all there in the mine.

- Walter Scott

The Deception Begins

In April 1902, Julian Gerard became the

first investor in Scotty's gold mine scheme.

Gerard bought a one-third ownership of the mine

for an initial grubstake of $1500,

after he assayed ore samples Scotty provided.

Gerard didn't know the ore actually came from a Colorado mine

Scotty had been employed in

during breaks from the Wild West Show.

Wheeling and Dealing To
attract other investors, Scotty used grubstake money to promote
himself. He went on spending sprees in cities from Los Angeles to New
York City. He stayed at the best hotels, bought drinks for everyone,
left gigantic tips, bragged about his gold mine, and then disappeared
back into the desert. As newspapers repeated his wild tales, he became a
folk hero known as Death Valley Scotty. As his fame grew, a mining
promoter, a railroad company, and at least one reporter would help him
stage publicity stunts.

The Coyote Special Scotty gained nationwide notoriety in 1905- the year of Daddy Hawthorne's birth-with secret support from a Death Valley mining promoter. Scotty
hired a three-car Santa Fe Railroad train, dubbed the Coyote Special,
that took him from Los Angeles to Chicago in a record 44 hours and 54
minutes. "We go there so fast," Scotty said, "nobody had time to sober
up." The stunt led to a meeting with an earlier investor who would
become his longtime benefactor. His name was Albert Johnson.

A Golden Friendship

Albert Johnson led a privileged life, but found real riches in his Death Valley Ranch. Albert
M. Johnson, unlike Scotty, was a quiet, religious man who did not
smoke, swear, or drink. Johnson grew up in a wealthy family in Oberlin,
Ohio. Upon graduating from Cornell University with an engineering
degree, he joined his family's mining investment business. After
injuring his back in an 1899 train accident which killed his father, he
moved to Chicago and made a fortune in the insurance business. He and
his wife, Bessie, devoted much of their time to church affairs.Johnson
first invested in Scotty's gold prospecting in 1904. After the record
train trip, Johnson decided to increase his grubstake of Scotty.
Johnson's visions of gold soon evaporated, but he continued to provide
food and shelter for Scotty plus an allowance for his estranged wife.
As far as anyone knows, Scotty never had a mine and never paid Johnson a
dividend.

Opposites often attract. Walter
Scott was a rough outdoorsman with little schooling. Albert Johnson was
a strait-laced, highly educated executive. Johnson visited Scotty in
1906 and again in 1909, hoping to see his gold mine investment in the
desert. Both times Scotty avoided showing him a mine. Johnson,
however, enjoyed the desert's fresh air and solitude and had a good time
riding horses and camping with Scotty. In each other, this unlikely pair found friendship.Johnson
was intrigued by both the romance of the Wild West and the reality of
the desert landscape. In Scotty, he found a colorful Old West character
and companion. In the desert, he found relief from his back injuries
and asthma. In Grapevine Canyon, he found an isolated place to build a
home away from home, a castle in the desert.

Wrote Albert Johnson in 1905:"Whether he [Scotty] has any mine or not I shall have a delightful outing and know I shall come out in much better health for Scott is a prince of good fellows and a delightful companion."In
response to a law suit from Julian Gerard, a former investor in
Scotty's gold mine, Albert Johnson tallied the money he had loaned
Scotty over the years. The total came to $117,979.09 between 1904 and
1939. Under oath in court, Albert Johnson explained his willingness to
write off Scotty's debt, saying Scotty "owes a lot of money. Why have I
staked him all these years? He repays me in laughs."

Moonlight in the DesertFor
Bessie Penniman Johnson, Death Valley was a haven of peace and
spirituality. Bessie Morris Penniman was raised in Walnut Creek,
California, at Shadelands, her family's fruit and nut ranch. Bessie
left home to join the first freshman class at Stanford University. Two
years later, she transferred to Cornell University, where she met Albert
Johnson. They were married in 1896. Like Albert, she found Death
Valley to be a peaceful retreat, but she wanted a few amenities. She
ended up with a castle.

In 1932, Bessie Johnson wrote:"Moonlight
anywhere is a delight. But there's no moonlight in the world that can
compare with the moonlight in Grapevine Canyon, our desert canyon, where
the Castle stands."

... the white rays of the silver moon soften the great
chasms round about, and the evening star glows like a blue-white
diamond... Our movies are the moving of the breezes through the pinion
trees; our dances are the dances of the stars in their courses; and our
stories are Scotty's romantic reminiscences of lingering memories."Defending ScottyOver
the years, Bessie developed a friendship with Scotty. Bessie said he
had a heart of gold and defended him from attacks. He called her
Mabel. In her book, "Death Valley Scotty by Mabel," published
posthumously, she described their desert adventures and sang his
praises.Born into an upper class
family, Bessie Johnson experienced many things for the first time in
Death Valley. She wrote, "The night at Granite Ridge was the first
night I had ever slept out-of-doors in the Desert. I was a sure-enough
tenderfoot and little did I sleep; although Al made me a fine bed and
dug hip and shoulder holes, for me, in the sand. But O! How lonely and
desolate it all seemed."

Scotty's Retreat

First
in 1912, then again in the late 1930s and early 1940s, tax
investigation and a series of law suits forced Scotty to admit the
truth: he never had a gold mine and all his money (and his Castle) came
from his investors.

In spite of being exposed as a liar, Scotty and Scotty's Castle continued to captivate the public's imagination.

Lower Vine Ranch

Albert
Johnson purchased another piece of land near his Death Valley Ranch.
The 1200 acre Lower Vine Ranch included springs that Johnson wanted to
maintain rights to. Partly to establish water rights, Johnson
constructed a relatively modest 3-room cabin out of redwood for Scotty
to live in.

Lower
Vine was Scotty's real home, but he made regular appearances at the
Castle, telling stories. Scotty discouraged visitors at his cabin, so
it seems he might have relished the opportunity to escape public
scrutiny occasionally.

Hard Times and Unfinished Dreams

Castle construction came to a halt in 1931 and left the Johnsons' plans frozen in time.

A
land survey associated with the proposed Death Valley National Monument
found that the land Johnson actually owned was one mile north and west
of the Castle. The ranch was officially closed to visitors during the
early 1930s while Johnson resolved property ownership with the Federal
Government. Albert Johnson traveled to Washington, DC, to negotiate for
property rights to Scotty's Castle - land he originally thought he
owned. Albert Johnson purchased the land for $1.25/acre, but never
finished construction of features like courtyards, the swimming pool,
and two more planned buildings.

Congress
passed H.R, 2476 to authorize either Walter Scott or Albert Johnson to
buy the land from the National Park Service, an agency not generally
allowed to sell lands under its protection. The transaction was
finalized in 1937; however, construction at Scotty's Castle never
resumed.

Tourists Provide the Gold

The
Great Depression depleted a large part of the Johnsons' fortune. After
reopening the ranch, the Johnsons offset some costs by providing tours,
curios, meals, and lodging. In the tourists, Scotty soon found an
audience for his wild tales. By the late 1930s, there was a steady
stream of curious strangers. The Johnsons hired employees to take care
of the property, cook, and even to conduct tours.

I took a few pictures of the outside areas
before our tour began.

Our guide summoned our tour party

by ringing the bell.

Here's the never-finished swimming pool.

The bell tower.

Talented artisans came to the site to work on the Castle's unusual
architectural and decorative features. They spent countless hours
refining a layered stucco technique to give the exterior an aged adobe
appearance.

Rugged
redwood beams, ceiling planks, and wall panels were burned, brushed,
and stained to give them an aged appearance. In some rooms, floral and
abstract designs reflecting different themes were carved in the wood.

Scotty even had a story for the design of the plate.

It was left outside in the hot sun -

sun so hot, it curled up the edge of the plate.

This also served a function-

to keep a gentleman's tie from falling into the plate.

The
dinnerware was specially designed
with a "J" and "S"
for Johnson and
Scott,
"D.V. R." for Death Valley Ranch,
and a Latin phrase, "suis viribus polens," meaning "by our perseverance we will succeed."

I don't know about you,

but my GAYDAR is pinging off the charts.

Most
tables, chairs, and other furnishings were designed and built in a Los
Angeles workshop that Johnson created to outfit the Castle. Some of the
antiques were purchased in Spain, Italy, and Mexico.

Ceramic tile was a prominent feature in the Castle -

so
much so that the Castle has been called a monument to the tile
industry. A few tiles came from Spain but most were made in Glendale
near Los Angeles. Some tiles were specifically designed for the Castle.

These wall sconces demonstrate the craftsmanship

and unique custom features

which appear throughout the Castle.

Bessie's bedroom,

where she could read and write.

This is one of the rooms that would later be rented out.

For $24 in 1952-1953,

one could stay overnight in the Johson suite,

get breakfast, and be entertained by Scotty.

Portuguese chest.

15th century.

Colorful tile patterns in the bathroom

in the Johnsons' bedroom suite.

Stained glass in the second floor music room.

This is the large music room
on the second floor.
This is the entertainment center
of the entire castle.
It features a rare theater organ
with more than 1000 pipes concealed behind the screen.

Notice how the tile patterns, ironwork,
and carved wood complement each other.